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COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

Whatever gets you through the night

Although aficionados tend to wax lyrical over the taste of their favorite tipples, shochu (a vodka-like spirit distilled from various grains) is always drunk swamped in a variety of mixes.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2002

Snow Brand exec faces fraud charge

The agriculture ministry on Friday filed a criminal complaint against a Snow Brand Food Co. official who allegedly orchestrated the falsification of labels on beef products to obtain government subsidies for mad cow disease.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 27, 2002

You've got mail

It was one of those sharp, pithy statements that raise the hair on the back of your neck. Similar perhaps to "Godzilla Lives!" or "The Creature Walks Among Us!" or "Quayle for President!"
COMMUNITY
Jan 27, 2002

100 years on: Japan's fateful 'surprise'

A hundred years ago this week, a small group of Japanese and British officials gathered at the Foreign Office in London, made a few speeches, signed some documents, drank Champagne and then dispersed into the cold and foggy streets of the capital of an empire "on which the sun never set."
COMMUNITY
Jan 27, 2002

Crash diet with a soft landing

"That's impossible!" said my colleague. "Ten kilos in three months? That's . . ." "Don't say it!" I put my hands over my ears, but he continued anyway. "That's 100 grams a day."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2002

Love always, Janet

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan seemed to be an odd choice for Janet Jackson's press conference, not that her being in town for the Japan leg of the "All for You" world tour didn't count as news -- the banquet room was packed with reporters and TV crews. But Jackson isn't the kind of news personality...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 22, 2002

Imprisoned in the devil's playground

After liftoff, Ariane rockets leave the Guiana coast and travel over three small islands known as the Islands of Salvation. These lie some 15 km off Kourou. For several hours after a launch, the only person allowed on the islands, now owned by the CNES, is one man who operates the cinetelescope. That...
LIFE / Travel
Jan 22, 2002

Imprisoned in the devil's playground

After liftoff, Ariane rockets leave the Guiana coast and travel over three small islands known as the Islands of Salvation. These lie some 15 km off Kourou. For several hours after a launch, the only person allowed on the islands, now owned by the CNES, is one man who operates the cinetelescope. That...
EDITORIALS
Jan 18, 2002

Shunto's role being tested

Japan's largest labor and management groups have kicked off their annual round of negotiations, with each side releasing a position paper. Basically the two sides agree that under present circumstances protecting jobs is more important than raising wages. That sounds reasonable enough, given that the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jan 17, 2002

Magic elfin adventures of Jak & Daxter land in Japan

Back in August, The Japan Times ran a feature about a company called Naughty Dog that specializes in 3-D adventure games.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jan 14, 2002

Still hurtling down the nationalist track

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In early 1997 I was hosting a reception at a Geneva hotel following a workshop on trade issues when a Japanese official took me aside. Looking at me conspiratorially, he whispered, "Professor Lehmann, I have an important question to ask you: How long do you think it will be before...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2002

The blackest summer in Sydney's history

SYDNEY -- The pall of eucalyptus-scented smoke that has smothered Australia's largest city since Christmas Day is lifting. More than 11,000 evacuees are returning to the burned-out bush where their homes once stood. The cost of Sydney's worst-ever bush-fire season? Who dares count?
COMMENTARY
Jan 12, 2002

Japan's economic black hole

Realism is finally impinging on the economic debate here. The "structural reform" ideologues may remain blind to the contradiction between urging privatization and liberalization even as they are being forced effectively to nationalize a banking system suffering from past liberalization excesses. But...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jan 6, 2002

Uncorking the bubbly, Nihon-style

Happy New Year to all Japan Times readers. May 2002 be a year of health and prosperity for all.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 6, 2002

Deconstructing Tokyo

INSIDER'S TOKYO, by Angela Jeffs. Times Books International (Singapore), 2001, 280 pp., with numerous maps and photographs, 2,100 yen (paper) Tokyo must have more foreign-language books devoted to it than any other major city -- not only the guides, which endlessly proliferate, but also serious books...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 6, 2002

Oh, what will they think of next?

It's never a good idea to start a new year by looking over your shoulder. But there's no harm in saluting the trends that have emerged over the past 12 months, especially if they represent a significant slippage in the gourmet zeitgeist. After all, yesterday's dabblings by the food fashionistas become...
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2002

JET Program doing its job but in need of reform: expert

The Japan Exchange and Teaching Program has improved English education in Japan and has promoted mutual cultural understanding between Japanese and people from other countries since its inception in 1987, according to the chairman of the program's evaluation committee.
EDITORIALS
Jan 1, 2002

For a new strategic calculus

One of the lessons of 2001 was that overwhelming military power has its uses. A relentless assault by a global coalition against a primitive country can bring a government to its knees. The chief question for the year ahead is whether we have also learned that the resort to military options reflects...
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2002

Pyongyang leader's son often sneaked into Japan

The man believed to be Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, has been found to have entered the country more times than initially suspected, sources close to the case said Monday.
JAPAN / ANCIENT TRADITIONS
Jan 1, 2002

Western eyes blind to spirituality in Japan

First of two parts
BUSINESS
Dec 31, 2001

Hunting down terrorist funding requires new teamwork

The bombing in Afghanistan continued throughout the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the Taliban government was swept from power much more swiftly than was previously anticipated.
COMMUNITY
Dec 30, 2001

O-Shogatsu: a custom-made holiday

Yoshio Mamiya doesn't need reminding that o-shogatsu is almost here. For several weeks, the 78-year-old craftsman has been working 12-hour days, seven days a week at his studio in the Sanno district of Tokyo's Ota Ward, where he busily stitches away to meet his customers' demand to renew their domestic...
JAPAN
Dec 28, 2001

Obscene teachers hit record number

A record 141 teachers were punished for committing obscene acts in fiscal 2000, resulting in 71 dismissals, an education ministry report revealed Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Dec 27, 2001

Rush imports up but leeks, shiitake down

Imports of rush, or tatami straw, continued to surge in the week to Dec. 21 over a year before, but those of stone leeks and shiitake fell, according to government data released Wednesday. The drop was attributed to voluntary efforts by Chinese exporters.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2001

Engineer in hospital exposed to massive dose of radiation

A 34-year-old man has been exposed to roughly 1,000 times the annual amount of radiation permissible while installing radiotherapy equipment at a government-run hospital in Tokyo, officials at the science and technology ministry said.
EDITORIALS
Dec 23, 2001

Milking maids for all they're worth

Here's a well-timed debate. In the runup to Christmas, the traditional season of generosity and good will to all, the citizens of Hong Kong have been arguing the rights and wrongs of their government's pending proposal to cut the minimum wage of foreign (mostly Filipino) domestic workers for the second...
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2001

Pediatrics strained to breaking point

It was just after midnight one recent weekend in the emergency room of Showa University Hospital in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. Pediatrician Katsura Sugihara was treating his 12th patient of the night, when the phone rang.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2001

Sowing the seeds of revolution

Does the end of Taliban rule mean that the people of Afghanistan can now look forward to a new era of peace and freedom? Not according to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, who believe that unless all fundamentalist groups in the country are disarmed, a repeat of the brutality...

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear